Guest posts

A guide to guest posting for WriteMindset

We’re open to receiving guests posts here on WriteMindset, but submissions need to match the style and content of the site.

In return, we offer a byline and links to your site. Don’t expect a deluge of new readers, though.

These are some guidelines to submitting content.

Articles must be original, making their first appearance on WriteMindset.

The content must be useful for the reader, telling them how to do something, or helping them improve their writing in some way.

Ideally articles should appeal to a wide range of writers – for example people who write blogs, or novels, or advertising copy, etc.

If you want to supply a guest post, you need to pitch an idea. It’s not enough to say you want to write a post, and ask what we want. You need to offer an idea for great content.

All articles should be accompanied by at least one photo suggestion. Better still, attach two or three photos as options (this is not essential, if you’re sure the one photo you’ve chosen is ideal). The best place to find photos is on Flickr.com, but you must check the Creative Commons status of photos. Please never submit a photo if the copyright owner has not released it under a CC licence. To learn how to find creative commons photos on Flickr, check out Skelliewag’s guide to finding photos on Flickr

Please put a photo credit as the end of your post, with a link.

Photos are better as a landscape view. No wider than 500 pixels please.

Format your post correctly: never submit copy within a Word file. Please use a text editor and submit as an .rtf or .txt file. Please include correct html code if at all possible. The easiest way to do this is to edit the document in your own blog editor (such as WordPress), and then, with the html editing options selected, copy and paste it into your text editor.

Make the post scannable – use short paragraphs, bullets, lists and subheads. Subheads can be formatted as bold (strong) or as H3 headlines.

this is what pullquotes look like

If it’s a long post, please include some pullquotes as well. These are formatted using blockquote with class=”right”. If that makes no sense, add your pullquotes at the end of the text, and mark it clearly.

No affiliate links in your post please.

It’s OK to include one or two internal links to your own blog posts. If you can find ways to include internal links to other WriteMindset posts, please do so. (Internal linking is good for SEO and for reader engagement).

Include a byline at the beginning (a few words) and a longer one at the end (a whole sentence). These can both include a link to your site.

Please proof read your post before you send it.

Write a great headline.

Ideally include a suggestion for page title (appears at the top of the browser), and meta description, and / or excerpt (these two can be the same text).

Remember that the audience is people who write. Your post needs to be well-written. If English is not your first language, we are unlikely to approve your post without a rewrite, and we may not have time to do this. Your post needs a great headline, should be engaging and entertaining, as well as informative.

But it’s OK to be daring and to push the boundaries.

Under reconstruction

This site is being rebuilt from the ground up. It's a mess, and will remain a mess for a while. Most of the content is there but images are missing, links are likely broken and the loss of formatting might make some of the text a bit garbled in places (pull-out quotes aren't working yet, and they might get dumped into the middle of other sentences)
Please be patient. Or call back sometime.